A Hockey Pioneer’s Moment

In his brief stint with the Rangers, “I didn’t get a chance to show what I can do,” said Larry Kwong, who left the organization after the season.

By David Davis

Feb. 19, 2013

Larry Kwong’s career with the Rangers lasted a New York minute, but his legacy lingers some 65 years after his debut ended in disappointment.

Long before Jeremy Lin transfixed the N.B.A. and New York City, Kwong was the first player of Chinese descent to appear in the N.H.L. He played for the Rangers in one game, for one shift, during the 1947-48 season.

“I broke the ice a little bit,” he said, pointing to the numerous players of Asian ancestry who have since played in the league. “Maybe being the first Chinese player in the N.H.L. gave more of a chance for other Chinese boys that play hockey.”

Larry Kwong was born in 1923, three years before the Rangers came into existence. His journey to the N.H.L. began in Vernon, a town in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. The gold mines drew his father to Canada from China in the 1880s. But he failed to make his fortune and turned to farming, then opened a grocery store, Kwong Hing Lung.

He had 15 children with 2 wives; Larry was the second youngest. Although his surname was Eng, he adopted the name of the store, and the family lived above it. The children pitched in after their father died when Larry was 5.

They faced other setbacks. Under the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, Chinese-Canadians were denied the vote and other basic rights.

“We were discriminated against in my own hometown,” Kwong said in a recent Skype video interview. “I couldn’t get a job. The barber wouldn’t cut my hair because I was Chinese.”

He found solace, and his métier, on the frozen ponds in the woods above Vernon. When the temperature dipped below freezing, his brothers would create a rink by dumping water in the empty lot beside the store. Larry had to beg his mother to buy his first skates; she bought a pair several sizes too big so he could wear them for several winters.

His first organized team was the Vernon Hydrophones in the midget league in the late 1930s. Then he moved to the Trail Smoke Eaters, who typically provided jobs for the players at the local smelter. Kwong was denied employment there because of his ethnicity, so he worked as a hotel bellhop.

“It leaves a mark on you,” he said. “You feel that you’re not one of the boys.”

Kwong entered the army and played hockey as entertainment for the troops during World War II. A Rangers scout spotted him, and he impressed the team during a tryout in 1946. He was assigned to the top farm team, the Rovers of the Eastern League, who played their home games at Madison Square Garden, then at 49th Street and Eighth Avenue. He borrowed a suit and tie from his brothers for the trip to New York.

Months before Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and integrated Major League Baseball, Kwong’s presence excited the city’s Chinese-Americans. Before one Rovers game, Shavey Lee, the unofficial mayor of Chinatown, and two showgirls from the China Doll nightclub honored a blushing Kwong at center ice. He was called King Kwong and the China Clipper.

At 5 feet 6 inches and 145 pounds, with his thick black hair slicked back, Kwong was a “doodlebug on skates,” according to The Toronto Globe and Mail. He thrived under Rovers Coach Freddie Metcalfe, centering a line with Hub Anslow and Nick Mickoski. One roommate was Fred Shero, who later coached the Philadelphia Flyers to two Stanley Cups.

“He was very clever and a good skater,” said the journalist Stan Fischler, who as a child watched Kwong with the Rovers. “He was like Yvan Cournoyer,” the elusive wing known as the Roadrunner, who played for the Montreal Canadiens during the 1960s and 1970s.

The Hall of Fame forward Jean Beliveau said: “Larry made his wing men look good because he was a great passer. He was doing what a center man is supposed to do.”

Kwong’s promotion to the N.H.L. came as the injury-plagued Rangers were making their first playoff run since 1942. He took the train to Montreal with Ronnie Rowe, a Rovers teammate who was also called up, and prepared to face off against Maurice Richard and Doug Harvey.

On March 13, 1948, Kwong slipped on a blue Rangers sweater in the locker room of the Montreal Forum, and felt nothing but pride.

“When I had a chance to become a Ranger, I was really excited,” he said. “I was looking forward to it. I said to myself: ‘That’s what I wanted to be since I was a young boy. I wanted to play in the N.H.L.’ ”

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Larry Kwong, 89, who lives in Calgary, was featured in a 2011 documentary on the Chinese-Canadian experience.CreditB.C. Sports Hall of Fame and Museum

Rowe saw frequent action in the game, but Coach Frank Boucher kept Kwong on the bench during a scoreless first period. The second period passed without Kwong getting any ice time, and the Rangers fell behind, 1-0.

The teams were deadlocked, 2-2, late in the third period. Finally, Kwong got his chance. He skated one shift before returning to the bench.

The Canadiens prevailed, 3-2. The New York Times reported, “The Rangers used Larry Kwong, first Chinese player in the league, only sparingly.”

Asked about the game, Kwong paused for a long time.

“I was quite disappointed because I was only used for about a minute in the last period,” he said. “I didn’t get a real chance to show what I can do.”

The next night, the teams returned to New York. Rowe played again, as did Herb Foster, another Rovers forward, but Kwong did not dress. He had become the hockey equivalent of Archie Graham, the outfielder known as Moonlight who played only two innings in one game for the New York Giants in 1905. (Graham was depicted in the 1989 film “Field of Dreams.”) Kwong’s basketball counterpart, Wat Misaka, the first Asian-American in the N.B.A., played three games for the Knicks in November 1947.

After his Rangers debut, Kwong did not question Boucher. “You didn’t do that,” he said. “He had his team.”

The Hall of Fame forward Dickie Moore said: “Back then, it all depended on your management and your coach and what type of player they were looking for. Somebody has to like what you have to offer. Larry was a heck of a hockey player. He was a good skater, a good puck handler. He could score goals. What more do they want?”

Beliveau spoke of the competition for spots in the six-team N.H.L. “There was maybe 100 players in the league,” he said. “They were there as long as they were doing the work.”

Fischler said, “I don’t think there was prejudice,” adding that Anslow, Kwong’s linemate with the Rovers, played only two games in the N.H.L. “I worked with Frank Boucher. He was a wonderful guy. But there was no justice for Larry Kwong. He deserved better.”

Kwong quit the Rangers organization after the 1947-48 season.

“I liked New York City very much,” he said, “but when that happened, I said I’m going to a team that I knew wanted me in Quebec.”

The next season, as the Rangers sank to last place, Kwong joined the Valleyfield Braves and played against the likes of Beliveau, Moore and Jacques Plante. Under Coach Toe Blake, Kwong led the Braves to the Canadian club championship in 1951 and was among the scoring leaders in the highly competitive Quebec Senior Hockey League.

Kwong starred for Valleyfield for seven seasons before going overseas to play, first in England, then Switzerland. He later taught hockey and tennis in Europe. By then, the N.H.L. had finally integrated, with Willie O’Ree becoming the first black player in 1958.

In 1972, Kwong returned to Canada to help his brother Jack operate a grocery store. Today, he lives in Calgary. He has outlived two wives, both of whom died of cancer, and all but two of his siblings. His daughter, Kristina Heintz, lives nearby, as do his two granddaughters.

Kwong’s most daunting challenge has been physical since the mid-2000s, when his legs were amputated because of poor circulation.

“The doctor told me, ‘If you want to live long enough to see your granddaughters go to school, I have to take your leg off,’ ” he said. “I tell you, that hit me like a rock. It wasn’t a good sight. But I’m all right now. I just had to go through that.”

Wearing prosthetic legs, he works out three times a week. He meets Rotary pals for coffee weekly and has had season tickets to the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League for 35 years. He said he never misses a home game, even in below-zero weather. He is planning his 90th birthday party for 200 people in June.

With assistance from Chad Soon, a schoolteacher in Vernon, Kwong has received belated recognition for being an N.H.L. pioneer. The Calgary Flames saluted him at the Saddledome in 2008. He was featured in “Lost Years,” a 2011 documentary about the Chinese-Canadian experience, and he was inducted this year into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame.

Kwong said he had not heard from the Rangers since 1948.

“It’s possible that I’ve been overlooked,” he said. “Who knows? I felt that I did my share for the team.”